Thursday 28 August 2008 19.01 EDT
First published on Thursday 28 August 2008 19.01 EDT

God wants you rich, and as if to prove it His golden forefinger is pointing down through the stage ceiling at the Excel exhibition centre in east London.

This is the International Gathering of Champions, one of the largest worship meetings of Pentecostalists ever held in Britain, and the three-metre (10ft) digit hanging above the preachers is a sign that they and the 80,000 who will come to hear them are, in the words of Deuteronomy, "empowered to prosper".

It may seem like a Monty Python comedy prop, but how to get rich and then how to get richer is the message of this eight-day meeting of mostly west African and Caribbean Christians, which reaches a climax this weekend. In other words, the Bible is the business plan and Jesus is the financial adviser-in-chief.

The loudest amen went to a preacher who told a parable of an IT consultant who went forth and multiplied his salary by 10. Thousands cheered as the preacher explained how a young man with few qualifications started on £14,000 a year and wound up working for a Swiss bank on £140,000.

"Get your calculators out, I know this is going to beep your horn," the preacher yelled.

In tightening economic times it is a popular message, and the event's attendance - 12,000 are expected at the closing service on Sunday night - sets a new tidemark for the fastest growing branch of Christianity in Britain.

Already an estimated 300,000 people attend Pentecostal services every Sunday and the gap is closing with the Church of England, which welcomes a congregation that has fallen beneath a million.

At the Excel centre, the star turn is Matthew Ashimolowo, a 56-year-old, golf-loving Nigerian TV preacher and leader of the Kingsway International Christian Centre, Britain's biggest Pentecostal church. Already he preaches to 8,000 every Sunday in east London, and his sermons are broadcast 24 hours a day on Sky and around the world.

This week, Ashimolowo's church announced ambitious expansion plans. KICC will build churches in Scotland and the north of England and launch a summer music festival for 50,000 which could be held in Hyde Park. Plans for a 10,000-capacity mega-church in London are to be considered by ministers.

"We are aiming to break into the mainstream of British society," said Pastor Dipo Oluyomi, chief executive of the KICC. "We will be establishing city churches in Manchester, Leeds and Edinburgh."

The move follows a controversial period for the church. The management of the charity which ran the church was criticised following a Charity Commission investigation in 2005. It resulted in Ashimolowo repaying £200,000 to the charity. The watchdog had discovered financial irregularities which included the charity's assets being used to buy a £80,000 car and a £13,000 timeshare in Florida for Ashimolowo.

The church was also evicted from its headquarters to make way for the London 2012 Olympics, and its planning application to build on a site in Rainham was turned down following vociferous local opposition.

But despite the setbacks, KICC has continued to grow through its "prosperity gospel", a "God wants you rich" philosophy that originated in Oklahoma and has spread throughout America and Nigeria. This week Ashimolowo claimed: "I have changed the landscape of the Christian church in the UK."

The growth of Pentecostalism has attracted the interest of universities in Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, which have launched a €500,000 (£400,000) research project into the trend.

"This has become a social force in the new Europe, but one that is usually marginalised and misunderstood," said Alan Anderson, professor of global Pentecostal studies at the University of Birmingham.

"The growth of churches like KICC is because of the continuing influx of west Africans. It becomes a place where they can feel at home and every facet of human life is catered for, and we should look at it as a very positive force for society." Students, solicitors and police officers as well as young mothers and pensioners attended the gathering this week.

"This is a place where people can feel a sense of connectedness, and they use the pastors as mentors who they can look to for direction," said Oluyomi. "We have career counselling, legal guidance and marriage help. We are making ourselves relevant to the community."

KICC even supplies GCSE tuition.

"Pastor Matthew Ashimilowo is my motivator and an inspiration because of what God has done in his life," said Maria Adiseyeye, a student from Hackney. "I have changed from knowing gang lifestyles now that I know God is preparing me to be a role model in the future."

On stage the giant finger hovers above Ashimolowo as he delivers his session entitled Follow Your Financial Map to Success. He gets a huge roar for his prayer that everyone pays off their mortgage soon and remarks that 38 of the Bible's 59 parables are about economics.

The economics of the church are transparent. At the end of a rousing sermon by the Nigerian bishop David Oyedepo, direct debit forms are handed round and the congregation are encouraged to make an "empowerment offering". KICC operates a system of tithes where worshippers consider it their duty to donate 10% of their gross income to the church. Each year, KICC said, it turns over around £9m - most of it from these donations.

Backstory

Kingsway International Christian Centre is the largest Pentecostal church in western Europe and preaches the "health and wealth" strand of the faith popular with migrant African communities. It launched in 1991 in an east London school with 300 members. Now, led by the Nigerian TV preacher Matthew Ashimolowo, left,it attracts 12,000 worshippers every Sunday. Also significant is the Redeemed Christian Church of God, which started in Nigeria and now has more than 250 congregations in the UK, the largest of which is Jesus House in London, with 3,000 members. Across the UK at least 300,000 people attend Pentecostal services each week, which means the faith is gaining on the Church of England, which recently saw Sunday attendances drop beneath 1m. The KICC is planning expansion, with new churches in Leeds, Manchester and Edinburgh and, is appealing against the refusal of a planning application to build a 10,000-seat church in east London. The biggest Pentecostal churches remain abroad. The Faith Tabernacle in Nigeria hosts 50,000 for Sunday worship.